Over the past couple years this blog has faded into the abyss of the interwebs. But I’m here to tell you that it’s going to live on and thrive.

First off, I’ll catch you up on what life has been like for me in Montana for the last six months or so. I had a great summer guiding fly fisherman for Latitudes Outfitting Co. here in western Montana. There were lots of great times to be had on the water, and a lot of happy clients!

On my days off, I had time to explore parts of Montana that I hadn’t previously spent much time in. Specifically, northwest Montana and Glacier National Park.

Near the end of summer I flew back to Minnesota to fish muskies with my Dad and high-school buddy Dominic. It was an amazing trip and we experienced the best muskie fishing any of us had seen.

Check out this great video Dominic put together of our trip!

It’s safe to say it was an amazing summer. Near the end of August I started my final semester at the University of Montana. Going to college at UM was the best decision of my life so far, and it was a bittersweet feeling to finally be done with school. Even though I had my hands full with classwork during the fall, hunting doesn’t play second fiddle to anything come autumn. It was a great season afield, and the freezer is definitely full.

Right now we’re going through the only month of the year where there’s not a lot to do (in my opinion). But soon enough we’ll be experiencing some of the best dry fly fishing of the year during late-March and April. The Missoula area of Montana boasts one of the best, if not THE best Skwala stonefly hatch in the country during this time. I’m pretty excited for that and for spring to hurry up and get here. Stay tuned!

This weekend two of my best fishing buddies and I traveled to the Washington Coast to fish for coastal steelhead on some hallowed winter steelhead rivers. Usually when this crew gets together there are a few fish pics to post, but not this time. Low water and not many fresh fish in the system meant tough conditions to swing em’ up on a fly. Can’t wait to get back though, it was an incredible trip! Heres a few photos I took while we were there.

On April 1st, my crazy friends and I were luck enough to obtain a permit to float the legendary smith river in central Montana. The Smith is a 60 mile, 5 day wilderness float that has some of the coolest country I have seen before. With finals week approaching here at The University of Montana, I’m a little tight on time so I figure i’ll just post up a bunch of photos from our trip. Enjoy!

As some of you may know, Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks is proposing putting a very large state park on Fish Creek in western Montana. Fish creek is a truly great Montana native westslope cutthroat stream, it’s mostly uncrowded, and it’s only an hour from Missoula. What FWP is proposing would make this fragile ecosystem overcrowded and I will assume eventual habitat destruction. The fish creek valley also is home to wintering Mule and Whitetail Deer, Elk, Moose and other wildlife. The expanded development of trails and electric hookup RV lots would definitely push animals out of the area. It is easy to see that FWP is looking for extra revenue and trying to take advantage of this great place. Take time to travel to fish creek this summer if you haven’t already done so to experience how wild and beautiful this valley really is. There are already a couple tent campgrounds on the creek, and in my opinion, the electric RV hookup lots would ruin how wild this place is. Comment on the link below and tell Montana FWP to not develop the Fish Creek drainage in any way, and keep this wild place unscathed by development. Thanks!

This summer was an absolute whirlwind, I was busy as a bee guiding, fishing, and traveling, and was only able to update the blog a couple times in the last few months. But it was a great summer, I enjoyed time on the water with a lot of great people, and was fortunate enough to experience some great fishing. Once again I don’t have a lot of time for a big write up, so I figured I’d post a handful of pictures I can round up from the summer to give you a feel of what it was like. Thanks for reading.

Mr. Robinson with a fine Bitterroot rainbow.

Cody with a sunset fish, during some of the best fishing of the year.

Scouting for ducks.

Kyle with one of his fist fish in Montana.

At times it was double the fun.

Herb, one of my favorite clients, with a great West Fork Cuttbow.

Stillwater River, MT

Gretchen with a bright Cutthroat.

Creek Rainbow. Photo: Dennis Anderson

A little Heli fishing

My Dad and I.

Creek Cutthroat.

Our Annual Elk River trip in Fernie, B.C.

Garret with a great Cutthroat from the Elk. Photo Credit: Alec Underwood.

Undie with a great fish from the Elk. Photo: Garret Visser

Garret’s girlfriend, Abby, with a great Bull Trout from the Elk. Photo: Alec Underwood

Today is the first day in a while where I’ve had a chance to breathe and relax a little, so I’ll put a few photos from the latest adventures up. Lately I’ve been all over western Montana chasing bent rods and good times, and for the most part we’ve enjoyed awesome fishing so far this summer. Last week we had great mayfly weather…clouds, rain and a just a little sun. Green drakes were awesome and the fish were on in the clouds.

Chunky mayfly eater.

Fishing buddy Tyler with a nice rainbow on a caddis.

I also ran up to the Blackfoot with a couple clients, although the dry fly fishing up there in the bright sun was not too spectacular, Brandon was able to hook and skillfully land this big Bull Trout…on 4x tippet. Pretty good for his third day ever fly fishing.

Rainstorm in the Bitterroots.

I did have a day off this week that I took advantage of to do a little fun fishing. We fished The lower Clark Fork a ways from town had had a fun day picking off some rising fish on pmd’s. Those fish down there fight so hard it’s ridiculous.

Cody with a very nice pmd sipper.

That’s all I got for now, stay tuned for more after fourth of July week.